Society is undergoing irreversible change. Solutions will
come when we care enough to ask each other, "What am I doing that makes
you feel you must hurt me?" With that understanding will come the
beginnings of a universal brotherhood of humanity.

15 comments:

Nice speech, Jim. I agree with your first statement. Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for dinner. It is why America was founded as a republic. Sadly, that is rarely taught and never emphasized in public schools these days. Conventional solutions are almost always authoritarian in nature drive from the top down by government or other elites. When people are free to make choices and faced with the consequences of those choices, they tend to be more cooperative. Don't believe everything you see on the Internet. Be skeptical of everything you see on TV. There will always be anti-social types among us. We must learn to be proficient at recognizing them and protecting ourselves from them. Where possible, we should encourage them to change their anti-social ways. When that is not possible we are left with little alternative but to avoid them. The analogy is how the Internet recognizes damage and routes around it. Best regards, Lou

When the answer to the question "What am I doing that makes you feel you must hurt me?" is "Because you do not believe as I do" what is the proper response to that answer? Lou states above that "we are left with little alternative but to avoid them". However, when they insist on pursuing us to destroy us then what are we left to do but to destroy them first. This is a horrific fact which has been proven time and again throughout history. Unfortunately I do not see us living in a "Star Trek" global community anytime soon where there is no currency, everyone is educated, hunger is eradicated, prejudice is eliminated and materialism is just a footnote in history. It is nice to dream though.

Jim, I agree that the system is rigged so that the gap between the haves and have-nots is inexorably rising out of control. However, I believe that the problem is unregulated capitalism, rather than a problem with democracy.

The other issue regarding why some may want to hurt us, is extremism religion and that provocation and mocking is a right of freedom of democracy.

Two wolves and a lamb…There will always be wolves and lambs.Wolves will always lord it over the lambs, unless the wolves have a change of heart and become benevolent.

All societies are reliant on the efforts of the diligent and the industrious among them to sustain those who are either lazy or unable.

The best results appear to be when individuals (especially leaders) become personally motivated to make significant sacrifices, caring for widows and orphans without the need of any coercion.

NO system of government can MAKE that happen.Only a personal transformation can bring this about.

A personal transformation that works on a whole nation?

From here it gets controversial, only because so many are under the mistaken belief that truth is NOT an absolute; But as long as we believe that there can be more than one truth (when these “truths” clearly contradict one another) - we must not be surprised when the results that we have to live with are a terrible mess.

"Political correctness", which tends to become more liberal with time, allows the worst in humanity to be considered acceptable, doing NOTHING to prevent the weeds among us from gaining undeserved influence and ruining it for everybody - including themselves, ironically.

There is no answer that will be acceptable to all – as our ideas of what truth is are wildly different.

So now the howls will come, as I deviate from PC.

The USA experienced a meteoric increase in wealth and prosperity on the back of a long period when they were “One nation united under God”. It was not perfect, there were still bad elements, but the national desire was there. A significant percentage had a healthy respect for God.

If there ever was a time for “If it ain’t broke…”

They decided to “fix it” in any case… Now the Christian God is summarily deemed offensive, and is banned in many places where He once held a place of honour.

Humanism is spreading, and is seeing some very outspoken and persuasive leaders that are doing a great job of convincing impressionable minds that the Bible is nothing but folklore, and that evolution of life and the universe (from nothing) is proven scientific fact (when it most certainly is not, in the light of the scientific method).

So we live in a time where you are not allowed offend anybody (except God?) – and what is right and what is wrong seems to be laid down by whichever passion is holding the crowd’s attention at the time.

This cannot end well.

Fresh thinking? Another “new” truth?It is at times like this when the Hitlers and the Stalins rally support.It is time to be afraid.

USA has experienced the best that they can, and they deny the source of everything. What they have been given will be taken away. History repeats itself.

I think that the USA may degrade to a third-world economy if they continue to turn their back on the one thing that brought them the greatest blessings that they have had.

China will be interesting to watch - as their Christian Church is the fastest growing...

This message to the world is thoughtful and thankfully short. It is not to the point! Yes, we the citizens of the world have a collective responsibility to care about the welfare of all and to act when reasonable and possible to improve things. To equate this responsibility with blame is ridiculously self-serving. No one has the right to force their beliefs upon another.

I appreciate your point, but that thought carried to the extreme (as it has in many cases in our present lives) is the fundamental cause of the decline of our society. To illustrate my point: Do we not have the right to force our belief that murder is wrong on murders? Without out some boundaries on what is acceptable, communities, society, and civilization as a whole loses control of itself and will collapse.

There are terrible things going on in the world. There always has been. On the other hand, we're living in a time with less horror than any other time in human history. Violent conflict was once a fact of life for almost every human being on the planet. It still is for far too many, but there are less wars going on now than in any point in human history. Extreme poverty has also declined and we can keep it going that way.

There are many ways in which society could collapse tomorrow. That has been true of every moment of civilization since the Sumerians started it. The challenge to mankind has always been to stay optimistic and work for better despite that. Our systems (capitalism, democracy, etc.) only improve as we figure out how to better live as a species. After all, democracy is almost 2,000 years old, but it's only been successful pretty recently.

With a connected world, we're more plugged into the misery than we've ever been. What we need is a dose of perspective. Without that, we fall back into tribalism (see above). Believing your way of seeing the world is THE way of seeing the world is born out of fear, not strength. People who are strong, truly strong, work everyday to be open to other viewpoints, while at the same time staying true to their values. It's a tough balancing act, which is why even the best of us can fail at it.

Extreme viewpoints, whether they be liberal (things are terrible and always have been) or conservative (things are terrible now, but they weren't in the golden age when everyone had to be like me), are fear based and will not move us forward. Every great advance in human life has been driven by optimism and work. We won't be able to take things to the next level without embracing both.

I think your article is great but suggest your concluding remarks are not very practical. It would be nice to think we could make that happen, but in my opinion we need to protect society from populist movements which lead to self destruction.

I am worried what can happen in a worst case, and perhaps an oligarchy, or republic of men of property (including intellectual property), or at least limited to taxpayers, would be acceptable solutions. This would help - otherwise we could revert to demagogues, tyrants or dictators.

Your frustrations are with good cause and I trust your visions for the future are ones that virtually all of us would embrace. But, the fundamental premise of your statements has been exaggerated to the point of error. If democracy is a luxury that the poor and starving cannot afford, then what would you propose they do for themselves? What system would you propose to eliminate the self-enrichment of a few that occurs at the expense of many? It is easy to criticize and destroy. But, if we want something better, we need IDEAS that can be put into ACTION. Good ideas provide reason for OPTIMISM. Optimism provides reason to go to WORK.